Tamping device for railway sleepers



y 1934- I H. CHRISTIANSEN 1,959,453

TAMPING DEVICE FOR RAILWAY SLEEPERS Filed Marh 18, 1929 60\ 72 a7 1 l I T2 Am I \IKYK W Patented May 2 2, 1934 1,959,458 TAMPING DEVICE FOR RAILWAY SLEEPERS Heinrich Christiansen, Pinneberg, Germany Application March 18, 1929, Serial No. 347,954 g In Germany March 19, 1928 2 Claims.

The invention relates to a machine for tamping the ballast below railway sleepers and has for an object to provide a tamping machine which will be independent of power generating stations 5 and also independent of air and steam conduits and electric cables. Another object of the invention is to provide a complete plant, combining the driving motor and the tamping device which may be freely portable by the operator. The operator will be enabled to operate the machine at any point of the line and to remove the machine from the latter without any trouble whatsoever upon the approaching of a train. Each operator and his machine will be entirely independent of any other operators and machines working upon the same railway.

In order to be able to attain the desired aim, the weight of the machine should be low and the recoils of the machine transferred to the arm of the operator should only be slight. For this purpose the weight of the masses moving to and fro should also be as low as possible. The required efficiency of the machine should therefore be attained by as large a number of blows as possible. It is, moreover, necessary, that the strokes of the tamping tool proper, through the medium of which the compressive effect is exercised upon the ballast, be extremely short, but at the same time very violent because the tamping tool should remain in permanent contact with the material to be tamped so that the operator will be able to control at any moment during the tamping operation the progress of the tamping work.

Another object of my invention is to design the machine in such a manner that the operator will not receive disagreeable and harmful vibrations and shocks during the operation of the machine. According to my invention the tamping machine comprises a prime mover in the form of a combustion cylinder or engine, a double-acting pump and reciprocating hammering ram cooperating with a tamping tool, all combined to one self-containing rigid body to be guided by the operator by hand by means of a sloping handle.

One constructional form of my invention is shown in the drawing by a vertical sectional view in a diagrammatic manner.

The tamping machine represented in the figure comprises a unitary rigid body 60 having a long handle '77 and in which three cylinders are formed, which enclose and guide operating pistons 65, 6'7, '71 respectively. The piston 65 and its cylinder form a prime mover in the form of an internal combustion engine. The piston 6'7 and its cylinder are arranged in axial alignment with the piston and form a double-acting air pump, the pistons 65 and 6'7 being rigidly connected by a rod 66. The piston '71 with its cyl- 50 inder, which in the shown form is in axial disalignment and includes in the shown form a right angle with the axis of the said first two cylinders, forms a hammering ram. A tamping tool '76 is arranged inaxial alignment with this ram and its 5 cylinder and is actuated by the blows of the ram and is driven against the material to be tamped under the sleepers.

Below the piston 6'7 a cylinder space 68 is formed and is connected with a space '70 at one 70 side of the ram '71 by a passage 69 in the body 60, and a chamber '72 at the upperside of the piston 67 is connected by means of a passage '73 with the space '74 at the other side of the ram '71.

In the shown arrangement a coil spring '75 is disposed in a space 68 and abuts at one end against the piston 67, while the other end is supported by the body 60 to provide a means for returning the piston 65 of the internal combustion engine after it has been driven downwardly by the explosion in its cylinder. For simplicitys sake, in the diagrammatic arrangement shown, the usual connection of the piston 65 witha controlling crank shaft has been omitted.

The action of this device is as" follows:

After the machine has been brought by the operator to a position in which the tool '76 is ready to operate on the material to be tamped, the combustion engine is set into motion. By the explosion of the fuel above the cylinder 65, the pump piston 6'7 is driven downwardly and the air compressed in the chamber 68 'is passed through the passage 69 into the space '70, so that the ram '71 is driven towards the right and impinges at the end of its stroke upon the tamping tool 76. On the'return stroke of the pistons 65 and 6'7 the air in the chamber 72 is compressed and passes by the passage '73 into the space '74, driving the ram '71 to the left. Before theram reaches the left end of its cylinder another impulse towards the right is delivered by the pistons 65, 6'7 and so on, in repetition.

I claim:-

1. A power driven tamping machine comprising at the lower end of a sloping handle to be 10,5 held and guided by the operator, a self-containing rigid body, a cylinder within the said body, a double-acting air pump cylinder within the said body arranged in axial alignment with the first cylinder, reciprocating pistons in said cylinders, 11,0

means positively connecting the piston in the pump cylinder with the piston in the first cylinder so as to cause them to reciprocate in unison, a third cylinder in the said body, the axis of which is in disalignment with the said first two cylinders, a floating ram in thesaid third cylinder, a passage in the said body connecting the space at one side of the piston in the said pump cylinder with one end of the said third cylinder at one side of the said ram, a second passage in the body connecting the cylinder space at the other side of the pump cylinder with the other end of the said third cylinder so as to provide an elastic reciprocatory drive of the ram in agreement with the reciprocatory movement of the said positively connected pistons, and a tamping tool arranged in axial alignment with the said third cylinder and entering the cylinder room at one side of the floating ram so as to be acted upon by the ram during its reciprocatory movement.

,2. A power driven tamping machine comprising at the lower end of a sloping handle to be held and guided by the operator a self-containing rigid body, a cylinder Within the said body,

a double-acting air pump cylinder within the said body arranged in axial alignment with the said first cylinder, reciprocating pistons in the said cylinders, a piston rod directly and rigidly connecting the said two pistons so as to cause them to reciprocate in unison, a third cylinder in the said body, the axis of which is in disalignment with the said first two cylinders, a floating ram in the said third cylinder, a passage in the said body connecting the room at one side of the piston in the said pump cylinder with one end of the said third cylinder at one side of the said ram, a second passage in the body connecting the cylinder room at the other side of the pump cylinder with the other end of the said third cylinder so as to provide an elastic reciprocatory drive of the ram in unison with the reciprocatory movement of the said positively connected pistons, and a tamping tool arranged in axial alignment with the said third cylinder. and entering the cylinder room at one side of the floating ram so as to be acted upon by the ram during its reciprocatory movement. HEINRICH CHRISTIANSEN. 

